I would add one other thing, some of those steps have opportunists in them.
Once you realize that, you realize you can be an opportunist too. You can play the game at the same level, by pushing chess pieces at a small level.
You can’t lobby to abolish the gold standard or influence federal appointees
you can. you can get your people in agencies and courts when the time looks favorable, and they will transcend the Senate committee composition and the President's administration.
> You can’t lobby to abolish the gold standard
odd example since that's gone for 50-90 years already, but again you can.
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think about it this way. periodically there's a conspiracy documentary about people pulling the strings of the elected President. what they neglect to mention is that every possible permutation of potentially electable Presidents have opportunists already waiting. You don't have to be a partisan. You don't have to actually be a partisan. Loads of people are doing things beneficial to them.
I’ve been stuck in that rabbit hole for atleast 2 years now. At the macro level it seems as if it was all planned but upon deeper reading I came to a conclusion that it was a sequence of events which while individually would have made sense collectively lead to the current mess.
To get a whirl wind tour and as a starting point I highly recommend Adam Tooze’s book “Crashed”. In it he chronicles the 2008 crisis beginning with Nixon’s abolishment of gold standard. The book is full of excellent references.